Urban Waste helped define New York hardcore—raw, fast, and stripped of any pretense. Formed in 1981 in the borough of Queens, they were among the first wave of bands that shaped the city’s early hardcore scene alongside Agnostic Front, Kraut, and Reagan Youth. Their self-titled 1982 EP remains a blueprint for the genre: under two minutes per song, all speed and frustration with no filler. After a long hiatus, the band re-formed in the 2000s and has continued to play and record with the same urgency and commitment that made them legends in the first place. Decades later, the Urban Waste name still carries the weight of that early fury.
Hardcore punk four-piece Soji, from Philadelphia, produces energetic melodies paired alongside subversive lyrics reflecting on racism, womanism, police brutality, and the growing housing crisis. Aptly named “the crown revived,” Soji comes out the gate swinging with a radically Black, Trans, and Queer-led ethos and a dedication to disrupting existing punk spaces in favor of centering more Black, Queer, and Trans punks. Their sound merges breakneck energy with lyrical precision, pushing hardcore forward while never losing sight of its revolutionary roots. One of the most striking new voices in punk and hardcore, Soji is as confrontational as they are cathartic—a band that demands to be heard and felt.
Recorded live in 2024 during Urban Waste and Soji’s run with MDC, this split captures both bands at full throttle—relentless, urgent, and unapologetically alive. The record stands as both a preservation of hardcore’s roots and a testament to its evolving future.
Urban Waste helped define New York hardcore—raw, fast, and stripped of any pretense. Formed in 1981 in the borough of Queens, they were among the first wave of bands that shaped the city’s early hardcore scene alongside Agnostic Front, Kraut, and Reagan Youth. Their self-titled 1982 EP remains a blueprint for the genre: under two minutes per song, all speed and frustration with no filler. After a long hiatus, the band re-formed in the 2000s and has continued to play and record with the same urgency and commitment that made them legends in the first place. Decades later, the Urban Waste name still carries the weight of that early fury.
Hardcore punk four-piece Soji, from Philadelphia, produces energetic melodies paired alongside subversive lyrics reflecting on racism, womanism, police brutality, and the growing housing crisis. Aptly named “the crown revived,” Soji comes out the gate swinging with a radically Black, Trans, and Queer-led ethos and a dedication to disrupting existing punk spaces in favor of centering more Black, Queer, and Trans punks. Their sound merges breakneck energy with lyrical precision, pushing hardcore forward while never losing sight of its revolutionary roots. One of the most striking new voices in punk and hardcore, Soji is as confrontational as they are cathartic—a band that demands to be heard and felt.
Recorded live in 2024 during Urban Waste and Soji’s run with MDC, this split captures both bands at full throttle—relentless, urgent, and unapologetically alive. The record stands as both a preservation of hardcore’s roots and a testament to its evolving future.
